(2/2) “This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

“Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.”
-Arthur Schopenhauer

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.” (1/2)
-Albert Einstein

The Joy of Life (Matisse)

“In my grandparents' time, it was believed that spirits existed everywhere […] in trees, rivers, insects, wells, anything […] I like the idea that we should all treasure everything because spirits might exist there, & we should treasure everything because there is a kind of life to everything.”

“Isn’t this the fast that I have chosen: to break the chains of wickedness, to untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free & tear off every yoke?”
-Isaiah 58:6

Christ in the Desert (Kramskoi)

“I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.”
-Albert Einstein

Luxe, Calme et Volupté (Matisse)

“By God, I mean a being absolutely infinite-that is, a substance consisting of an infinity of attributes, each of which expresses an eternal and infinite essence”
Deus sive Natura
“Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived.”
-Spinoza

The Mulberry Tree (Van Gogh)